


Unbelievable

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [27]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blackmail, Brother-Sister Relationships, Harry is complicated, Little Brothers, Protective John, Protective Siblings, Sibling Love, Sibling Rivalry, Swearing, glimpses of Kid John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 14:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3212489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day after Milverton comes to Baker Street to threaten John and Sherlock, John tries to discuss the threat with his sister Harry. It goes very badly indeed, with a prodigous amount of swearing to boot. But the next day, Harry Watson goes to see Sherlock Holmes to talk about her brother, and to explain a thing or two to Princess Bloody Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbelievable

The day after Charles Augustus Milverton paid them a personal visit at Baker Street, to once more threaten repercussions if they did not _cease and desist_ , John bit the bullet and visited his sister.

John had suspected the get-together with Harry would be a disaster.

John had been right.

Harry stood opposite him at her kitchen table, fists and teeth clenched, face white except for the two spots of stormy red on her cheeks. Her enraged silence was more quelling than the moments-ago clatter of her chair being kicked across the kitchen.

"Fuck you, Johnny. You’re _unbelievable_. _Double_ fuck you, you little _shit_."

"Harry..."

"Is that what you think of me? That i'm so depraved that somehow I'm perfect blackmail material?"

"That's not what I'm saying."

"It's what you implied. What, you think I've been stealing money to support my alcohol habit, or do you think I’ve moved on to the Class A stuff now? You think that I secretly killed people in a drunk driving accident and nobody knows? That I've been molesting little girls?"

"Jesus, Harry," snapped John, exasperated and angry, "No. Fucking _no_ , all right? But this Milverton character, he's looking for anything that will hurt us..."

"Of course, it's all about _you_ and that precious pretty man-boy of yours! What about him, eh? What secrets is your darling Sherlock keeping? What dirty skeletons are in _his_ closet he never told you about?”

" _None_ ,” John snapped, “Keeping secrets from me nearly destroyed me last time and he knows we wouldn't survive that a second time. So I know his secrets. He knows mine."

"Aww, aren't you the loveliest little newlyweds on the block, then? Am I meant to be happy for you? Well, fuck you and your luscious little _sweetpea_."

That got to him, the way she sneered when she flung that endearment at him.

"And fuck you too, _Harriet_." He threw back the name she hated. "Get it through your thick skull, the way Milverton can hurt us, hurt _me_ , is by hurting _you_. By destroying _you_. And if I don't know what he might have on you that can do that, I can't protect you. I can't keep you safe. Oh _fuck_." John's own chair scraped and clattered as he shoved it away, lurching to his feet. "Christ, Sherlock was right. This is impossible. How are we meant to stop this vile fucking shitgoblin if we can't protect the people he'd destroy to stop us? And especially if those people won't _let_ us."

"I don't need your protection," snarled Harry.

"And Clara?"

Even the red spots in her cheeks paled to chalky white then. "What," said Harry, low and dangerous, "The fuck do you mean by that?"

"I mean," said John, matching her glare for glare, "What if he has something on you that can hurt her?"

"You miserable, cunt-sucking, knob-rotted little fuck."

John didn't point out the factual errors in the insults. Instead, an awful option occurred to him. "What if he tries to destroy Clara to get to _you_?"

"And all so he can put a stop to you and Princess Fucking Shirley interfering with his blackmail racket? Jesus, fuck, John, just leave the fuckbucket to himself."

"We can't do that, Harry. You know we can't, especially now we’ve started. Milverton won’t leave it be until he’s broken us. Christ, the man came to our house and he literally pissed in the fireplace like he was an animal marking _territory_. He's destroyed lives. People have _died_. I've seen a lot of nasty little pricks in my time, a lot of really vile stuff. But this Milverton. He's... fucking _evil_ Harry. He's the devil personified. We have to stop him, but I don't want you to pay for it. I don't want yours to be one of the lives he shits all over, let alone one of the ones who _dies_."

"Why not? We all know I'm the monumental fuck-up of the family."

" _Because you're my sister and I love you, you utter twat_." John shouted back and with that he snatched up his jacket and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

*

"Not a success then?" Sherlock asked as John stomped back into the flat.

Instead of replying, John stomped to the sink and slammed coffee cups, teaspoons and the kettle around, preparing to make a fucking cup of fucking tea if it fucking killed him...

He tensed angrily as Sherlock moved up behind him, pressing his chest along John’s back and placing his hands over John's, which were holding too tight to a coffee cup. He was within an ace of snarling something abrupt, until Sherlock bent to say softly into his ear: "I will not let him harm her."

John sagged back against Sherlock with a miserable sigh. "I don't know how to protect her, Sherlock. She won't tell me if there's something to be protected _from_. I thought she was going to stab me with a teaspoon, at one stage."

Sherlock wrapped his arms around John's torso and rubbed his nose against John’s cheek. "Perhaps there is nothing. I couldn't find anything. Nor could Mycroft."

John tensed again. Sherlock waited while John took and held a breath then slowly let it go.

"Of course you had to check. Sorry." John raised his hands to hold Sherlock's arms close around him. "I thought you said Mycroft refused to do anything."

"He said he found Milverton useful," Sherlock said, his lip curling again at the memory of that conversation, but then he turned to press his temple to John's cheek. "I think Milverton has something on him."

"On _Mycroft_?"

"My brother is no more pure than I am, but his ancient indiscretions may be something ill-advised for a man in his position, even if they are not technically illegal. Or even, in contemporary public terms, immoral. His considerations are far more delicate. His work involves nations, after all, not Great Britain solely. One of the many reasons I never considered following in his footsteps."

"Christ."

"But he could help us this far. Harry's alcoholism may cause all kinds of problems for her and for you, but there's no indication there's anything worse and not already fairly well known by her employers past and present, or her circle of friends. Nor is there anything potentially damaging in Clara's life, that we could find."

"Ah. You thought of that. It didn't occur to me until I was at Harry’s."

Sherlock kissed John’s cheek instead of calling him an idiot, even fondly. "That doesn't mean Milverton hasn't something else up his sleeve."

"No," sighed John in misery.

"I'll make tea," said Sherlock, "You clear the table. I've ordered in from Pret."

"They don't deliver." John turned in Sherlock's arms to see his husband's smug smile.

"They do to me. The Pret on Great Portland Street does, anyway. I cleared up an extortion attempt for them last week."

"You're amazing," said John, "in case I haven't told you today."

“You can always say it again,” replied Sherlock, mock-preening, or maybe just preening. John wrapped a hand around the back of Sherlock’s neck, fingers in his hair, and drew him down for a willing kiss. Sherlock’s hand splayed across the small of John’s back briefly, keeping him close, before Sherlock patted John’s hip. “Table.”

When John turned to clear the table of newspapers, slides and an untidy heap of carpet swatches, Sherlock patted him on the bum, making John smile for the first time since he'd left that morning to see Harry.

*

The doorbell rang ten minutes after John left the next morning for his twice-weekly stint at the clinic. Sherlock, who had as usual stood at the window to watch John leave, had spotted his visitor loitering just down the road. By the time she rang the bell, was admitted by Mrs Hudson and climbed the stairs, he had made tea.

Harry Watson glared at Sherlock when he opened the upstairs door. Sherlock nodded a graceful, silent greeting and waved her to the client's chair.

"Don't look so fucking smug," she warned him.

"I think I'm more relieved," said Sherlock neutrally, "He is worried about you."

"He worries too much. I'm an adult. I can look after myself."

"Worrying obsessively about siblings is apparently a thing with some people. Sugar?"

Harry shovelled five spoonfuls into her tea, giving him a defiant glare all the while. She stirred aggressively, the teaspoon rattling against the cup. She tapped it hard on the edge, making Sherlock think of John’s concern that his sister wanted to stab him with a teaspoon.

"How's married life?" Harry asked sharply, her tone flattening to a sneer at the end, "Do you rub his little belly for him at night when he's all stressed out and has a _widdle tummy ache_?"

The last words were said in a babyish sing-song. Harry was not prepared for the sudden look of avid, intense fascination on Sherlock's face.

"Does he like that?" Sherlock asked, curiosity laced with an odd longing.

Harry, startled, stammered out: "When he was little and he got upset, he'd get bellyaches. Mum would rub his tummy and sing to him till he calmed down."

Sherlock's expression indicated he'd solved a minor puzzle. "What songs?"

Harry actually managed to laugh. “He loved _Hold me Close_. You know. David Essex. That was his favourite. When he was four or five he’d dance around the kitchen with Mum and do these little actions.” Harry wrapped her arms around herself and rocked a bit as she sang, “ _Hold me close, don’t let me go, oh no_ ,” Then she pointed to Sherlock then herself, “ _You and me, our love it will stop the show…_ ” Her arms dropped away and she laughed. “He could always make Mum smile with that, even when he was a teenager and Dad was so sick. He was the cutest thing, _and_ he bloody knew it.”

She shook away the memory, and stared at Sherlock who was clearly trying to picture the toddler John dancing in a kitchen, hugging himself and – and he looked besotted by the image his imagination conjured.

"God. You really love him, don’t you? You love him like people do in songs."

Sherlock’s expression immediately shifted to an impassive mask. “Why have you come here, Harry?”

“It’s about this Milverton business.”

“Well, obviously.”

“Don’t be a prick.”

“It’s part of the package, I’m afraid.”

“God, the two of you belong together, don’t you? Insufferable shits, the pair of you.”

“If you have a point…” Sherlock prompted drily.

“My point is,” said Harry acidly, and then she slumped and scowled into her tea cup. Sherlock watched her shovel two more spoons of sugar into the fluid, then sip the foul concoction as though it were just the ticket.

“The thing about John and me is,” she said at last, putting the cup down with a slosh and a _clink_ , “We fight all the time. We always have. We do things differently. We think differently. It’s a pain in the arse, but it’s just how we are. And partly it’s because he’s so… He’s the responsible one, you know? He was always the good kid and I was always the troublemaker. It was like nobody but me could see what a little arse he was. He went off exploring on his own, and nobody gave a toss, except for that time he got himself stuck in a stormwater drain and Dad had to get him out again. He liked to do things that scared him, even when he was in bloody nappies. He got into fights, defending other people. He used to get into scraps defending me. If I got into a scrap defending myself it was neverending strife and _that’s not how little ladies behave_ , and all he got was _good boy, standing up for your sister; Harriet, why can’t you be more like your brother?_ Except when I was more like my brother, I got in trouble for not being girly enough.”

Harry scowled again and scrubbed a hand through her hair in a gesture that Sherlock found familiar. Harry Watson was, he thought, far more like John than she believed.

“John’s always been like that, though. Even though he’s the youngest, he was always looking out for me. When Dad got sick, and then Mum, he looked out for them too, as well as me because… because frankly, I didn’t cope well with it. I suppose you know that’s when the drinking started. It wasn’t the only reason but…”

Harry stirred her tea again, unnecessarily, then slammed the teaspoon down with a clatter.

“John has always looked out for me, and I hate it, because I hate it that I’m so fucking weak. When Dad got sick, Mum sort of lost it and so did I. John kept us all going. He studied and he worked and he looked out for everyone. Then Mum got sick, and he kept looking after me, even though I kept shoving his help back at him and treating him like shit, because I hated how much I needed him. Christ, anyone would think he was the eldest, the way he took it all on and kept us all going. Kept me going.” Again, she scrubbed her hand through her hair, and over her face.

“Even though I was a train wreck, he tried and tried, and when I wouldn’t listen any more, he went away with the army and looked after other people. And even though I still treated him like shit, he sent money, he tried to help. He went and won medals, and then he got himself shot, looking after other people. He is amazing, and half the time I think he’s got no idea about how amazing he is.”

She blinked at Sherlock then, all the fight drained out of her. “Fuck. My baby brother won medals for bravery. My baby brother whose nappy I used to help change, and who peed all over me once, and who used to sing that stupid song and get stomach aches when he was upset – he’s a bloody hero.”

Her jaw worked – another distinctive Watsonesque habit – and she met Sherlock’s studiously neutral gaze. “When you were dead, John used to call up to talk to me about you. I think he just liked to talk about you to _someone_ , but he hated it when people were… I don’t know. Like they pitied him. I didn’t pity him. I hated seeing him like that, but it wasn’t pity. I was angry with you for dying and doing that to him.” She clenched and unclenched a fist. “He said to me, once, that you’d told him there was no such thing as heroes.”

“There isn’t,” said Sherlock tersely.

Harry Watson looked him straight in the eye and one side of her mouth curled up in a sardonic grin.

“You don't fool me, Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “I was there when you married my brother. Never mind the ground he walks on. You worship the air he breathes. So fuck you with your ‘there aren't any heroes’ bullshit and don't you tell me John isn’t one. He’s a hero to me, even if I’d rather set myself on fire than tell him so. He's your hero too. Even if we never tell him, because it'd just make him and me and you too bloody uncomfortable. But that's what he is to us.”

Sherlock’s carefully impassive exterior faltered. He did Harry the great complement of not disagreeing with her. He even, with a faint tilt of an eyebrow, acknowledged the truth of what she said.

“So,” said Harry, “This Milverton fucker. He’s a Class A slimebag, John says.”

“Charles Augustus Milverton is vicious and cruel, Harry. He does not care who he destroys. There isn’t enough money to stop him, once he’s decided to exercise his power. He enjoys the damage he inflicts more than he enjoys the wealth.”

“John also said you and he don’t have any secrets any more.”

“Complete honesty is the only weapon we have. Milverton can’t use secrets to separate us if there are none.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I figured. So… so last night, I had a long talk with Clara, after Johnny left. About Milverton, and… and all my secrets. Do you know what she said to me?”

Sherlock shook his head. He couldn’t deduce and he couldn’t even guess.

“She said she loved me, and that she’d stand by me, and she wasn’t going to let anybody hurt me.” Harry laughed. “She’s just like John. She wants to protect me. And it’s funny, but it turns out… I don’t mind. Not when it’s Clara. But that turned into something even funnier.” She drew herself up again, lifting her chin. “It turns out I want to be somebody worth protecting.”

“John thinks you are.”

“Yeah, but John can be an idiot. We both know that.” Harry pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and looked up again. “You know, I don’t think there is anything on me that pusbucket Milverton _could_ use, but frankly, there were times in my life I was so drunk I don’t actually remember what I might have done. But… you know, that’s my own lookout. Johnny’s done everything he could for me. He’s been cleaning up my messes all his life, when I let him. I think it’s probably time I stepped up to the plate, yeah?”

She took another deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“I've never been strong like John,” she said, “But if this son of a bitch is trying to use me to hurt him, he can go tear himself a new one. It’s way past time I grew up. It’s time I grew a _spine_ and stood up for my little brother. So… screw _me_ , Holmes. I'm a big, ugly grown up woman and I'll wear the consequences of my life. You just make sure John doesn't. You make sure that slimy fucker doesn't touch him.  He's my baby brother and he’s the best thing in my life – before during and after Clara – and it's time he had a big sister worth a damn.” 

With that, she nodded sharply and stood up.

“I better go. I’m on the afternoon shift at work. All those customers won’t serve themselves.”

Sherlock rose with her and walked her to the door.

Harry turned. “You’re going to tell him I was here, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“The no secrets policy.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t tell him what I said, though. The hero stuff.”

Sherlock’s mouth tilted in a small smile. “No. That’s between us.”

“You are so soft in the head about my little brother,” she accused, but good humouredly, like she approved.

“Yes,” he conceded, “You are completely correct in that assessment.”

Harry laughed. “Christ. Princess Sherlock and Sir John, his knight in shining armour.” But it wasn’t bitter. Instead, she regarded Sherlock wistfully. “I hope I have that with Clara, you know. I’m sick of being the one who needs rescuing. I want to be her knight.”

“Then choose that,” said Sherlock, “And fight for it.”

“I will. And don’t you let Milverton hurt him.”

“I will do everything in my power to keep him safe.”

“Except lie to him.”

“Except that.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Then Harry Watson strode out the door.

Sherlock walked to the window to watch her go. She left with her chin up, her stride fast and pugnacious. So like John. He found he had a sneaking respect for her after all, which he would never have believed before today.

And there was another door closed on Milverton, though how strong the lock may be remained to be seen.

It wasn’t the comfort it should have been.

What, thought Sherlock, would Milverton’s next move be?


End file.
